The seminal piece of Davidson, Coenen and Gleeson gives a good overview of the role of C40 as a global intermediary for establishing networked governance and knowledge brokerage of cities. The identified benefits for cities participating and even driving city networks are well presented, however require a closer conceptual and empirical development that also considers evidence and reflection from the institutional work of other transnational networks such as ICLEI, Climate Alliance, Asian Climate Change Cities Resilience Network, 100 Resilience Cities as well as the Covenant of Mayors and UCLG. In this response article we extend the conceptualization of the benefits and risks for the roles of city‐networks as curators of institutional spaces for co‐creation and knowledge co‐production to respond to the third theme of Davidson, Coenen and Gleeson paper on the ways that city networks shape urban institutions.